Today is Labor Day. Another annual milestone that is less meaningful during a pandemic. It's the last day of summer for public school kids in Northern Virginia, although they will just be going back to school online for now. My work is on hiatus and I'm doing a temporary position for a different department for most of the upcoming semester. Penny is home with us for the foreseeable future.
We are slowly expanding our social circle to seeing a few friends outdoors. Penny has really developed a friendship with the neighbors' kids, seeing them entirely outdoors. We see grandparents on both sides occasionally, maybe once a week or every other week, outdoors when possible, sometimes masked inside. We try to get outdoors and go to parks, but I still feel anxiety with the number of people we come in contact with, even if most are masked and we are outside. It just makes me miss the days we lived in Sydney, and on any given day we could go to any beach we chose, beautiful Centennial Park, or go to the mountains or the bush, and just enjoy being out and about and carefree. We miss the cafe culture there and the local breweries, and just being able to meet up with our friends so easily.
We moved back here so Penny could have at least a few years for building relationships with her family here. In some ways it has been a success, but it definitely hasn't been what we envisioned. Now, I regularly way the pros and cons of moving back to Australia or maybe even Canada if one of us were to get a job there somehow, in the next few years. I guess time will tell if we end up staying here longer-term, or leave for somewhere where it's easier to live a more outdoorsy lifestyle. We are torn between where we have connections, and where we would choose to enjoy living just based on the geography/weather/laws/local lifestyle.
So far, being homeowners has been average. There are some perks and some downsides, as we discovered when our shower started leaking and now we have to get quotes for expensive repairs. We do enjoy having our own private playground and backyard space, though.
We are continuing on in limbo, like everyone else. It will be interesting (and it makes me nervous to think about) what will happen on election day in November.
